Using of AI solutions in 2026: Why Image Moderation or ID check could protect your brands and services.
Image moderation and ID checks play a critical role in protecting brands and services in today’s digital environment. Not only that they reduce risk or build trust. It helps to ensure platforms to operate responsibly and legally. Important is that no topics relevant to the protection of minors are uploaded to platforms. Because that would impact liability and especially in Germany it is very strict and it doesn’t matter if the product is e.g. in the USA.
So, lets have a look what matters:
First is protecting Brand Reputation when using user generated content.
User-generated images can expose a brand to harmful, offensive, or illegal content. Without moderation, such content may appear alongside a company logo or service with the result of damaging public perception. Image moderation helps ensure that what users see aligns with brand values and standards.
Second is to prevent Fraud and Impersonation.
Check who is there and so ID checks help to verify users are who they claim to be and this reduces issues like Fake accounts, Identity theft, Account takeovers or Scams and impersonation of businesses or public figures.
This protection is essential to maintain credibility for companies active in fintech or marketplaces.
Another point is enhancing User Safety and Trust.
Users feel safer when they know that a platform verifies identities and moderates images. This is especially important for social platforms, Marketplaces, Dating apps or Financial and on-demand services. Trust directly impacts user retention and long-term growth.
The next point is to ensure the Legal and Regulatory Compliance.
As many industries are required to follow regulations such as KYC (Know Your Customer), AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and child protection laws the Image moderation and ID verification help organizations to comply with these regulations and avoid fines, lawsuits, or service shutdowns.
Another important issue is to reduce the operational and financial Risk as unchecked content and fraudulent users can lead to Chargebacks or Customer support overload and Legal disputes with platform abuse.
Mark: the early detection through image moderation and ID checks significantly lowers these costs and discourages harmful behavior by setting clear boundaries. Verified users are more accountable, which leads to better interactions, higher-quality content, and a more respectful community. This will create a healthier digital community.
Finally manual review becomes impractical as platforms grow. Automated image moderation and ID verification allow brands to scale safely without sacrificing quality, security, or user experience and this ends in Scalable Growth.
AI solutions in a nutshell:
Image moderation and ID checks are not just security tools—they are strategic investments that protect brand integrity, foster trust, ensure compliance, and enable sustainable growth. In addition it is a protection against shutdown by payment service providers.
The use of AI-powered content moderation can be a crucial protection mechanism for companies whose business model is threatened by payment service providers (PSPs) – especially in industries with potentially sensitive, regulatory-critical or morally controversial content (e.g. erotica, gambling, CBD or political content).
A question: Why is there a threat of shutdown by payment service providers? Well, payment service providers like PayPal, Stripe or Visa/MasterCard have clear guidelines regarding:
- Illegal or questionable content (e.g., violence, hate speech, pornography)
- Violation of Terms of Use, or
- Reputational risks (brand safety)
Violating these guidelines often results in:
- Payment stop
- frozen funds
- Account Suspension
- Loss of the ability to accept credit cards
And that, in turn, can put an entire business in trouble and should be avoided at all costs. A second question: What role does AI-supported content moderation play in this context?
AI systems can automatically analyze and classify content before it goes online or is regularly checked in operation. This proactively prevents PSP policies from being violated.
Now it would be necessary to examine which specific protective measures can be implemented by AI and what benefits this will bring to PSP compliance. This includes content review before publication, so that no risky content gets online. Automatic tagging of problematic content leads to clear categorization for human reviewers. An escalation system for borderline content, where critical cases are manually reviewed. There are also customizable filter rules per PSP, which make different policies implementable depending on the PSP. Last but not least, audit logs and reports are available as proof in the event of disputes or PSP audits.
It would be suitable for customers from the segments such as Erotic platform to distinguish pornographic material from artistic nudes – AI ensures that only legal content is processed by PSP. User-Generated Content Platform (UGC) uses NLP to filter extremist language to comply with PSP requirements. E-commerce for CBD products automatically analyzes text and product descriptions for health-related claims that PSPs view critically.
It can be said that content moderation via AI, e.g. from airis:protect Amazon or Microsoft, in the targeted use of AI for content moderation and ID check, is a strategic building block to secure the business relationship with payment service providers.
Which could you use of them? Here is an overview:
Decision support: Microsoft vs. Amazon (AWS) vs. airis:protect
|
Use case / criterion |
Microsoft (Azure AI) |
Amazon (AWS AI) |
airis:protect |
|
Content moderation (images, videos, text) |
⚠️ Possible, but generic (custom build required) |
⚠️ Possible, high implementation effort |
✅ Core competence (out-of-the-box) |
|
Nudity, violence, drug detection |
⚠️ Basic models available |
⚠️ Basic models available |
✅ Specialized, trained models |
|
Symbol & Extremism Detection |
❌ Not specialized |
❌ Not specialized |
✅ I (z. B. forbidden symbols) |
|
Live-Moderation (Streams, Uploads) |
⚠️ Possible with in-house development |
⚠️ Possible with in-house development |
✅ Real-time capable |
|
ID Verification / Age Verification |
⚠️ Building blocks available |
⚠️ Building blocks available |
✅ Integrated ID & Age Checks |
|
Fraud & Fake Account Prevention |
⚠️ Indirect |
⚠️ Indirect |
✅ Direct Focus |
|
KYC / Compliance-Use-Cases |
✅ Strong in the enterprise environment |
✅ Strong in the financial & tech environment |
✅ Strong for Platforms & UGC |
|
Chatbots & generative KI |
✅ Very strong (co-pilot, GPT) |
✅ Very strong (Bedrock, Q) |
❌ Not Focus |
|
Train your own AI models |
⚠️ Possible, but limited |
✅ Very strong (SageMaker) |
✅ Possible as agreed |
|
Integration with existing IT |
✅ Microsoft ecosystem |
✅ Cloud-agnostic |
✅ API-based, quick to integrate |
|
Time-to-Market |
⚠️ Medium |
⚠️ Long (Setup-intensive) |
✅ Very fast |
|
Scalability |
✅ High |
✅ Very high |
✅ High (for Moderation/ID) |
|
Data protection / GDPR |
✅ Enterprise-Standards |
✅ Enterprise-Standards |
✅ EU hosting, GDPR focus |
|
Target group |
Corporations, Office users |
Developers, Tech Companies |
Platform operators, marketplaces |
|
Typical industries |
Enterprise, Administration |
Tech, FinTech, SaaS |
Social, Dating, Marketplaces, Media, Tech |
Conclusion:
AI Image Moderation and/or ID check could protect your brands and services in a perfect match. Choose the right opartner for your business and continue to be successful. If you focus on content moderation, identification checks, and user safety, airis:protect is a focused, pragmatic tool – unlike the broader cloud AI platforms from Microsoft or AWS.





